Awakenings
by Giedre
Summary: [Sleeping Beauty] A twisted little vignette I wrote on a dark and stormy night. Rated for... imagery?


**This was written at the tail end of a very depressing day for me, while I was listening to My Chemical Romance's first CD. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. However, I hope you like it, although I can't gurantee that you will. Pretty much just a vignette of Robert, aka "Prince Charming," set to awaken the fair maiden who is Sleeping Beauty.**

* * *

**Awakening**

He knew he was supposed to lean down and kiss her. That was how all his parent's, and parents' parent's stories went. And she was so beautiful…

He couldn't do it. All his life, people told him he was worthless, stupid, scum. Now, here he was, the time and place of his reckoning, his vindication… and he couldn't go through with it.

There was no doubt that she was beautiful- the stories had been right in that respect, but to Robert, it just seemed wrong. She looked so peaceful, lying there in her white gown and halo of white-gold hair. One-hundred years, that's what the stories said. One hundred long years she'd been waiting for someone to save her.

Or maybe she hadn't, Robert thought suddenly. Maybe she'd pricked herself on the spindle, or sword, or rose thorn, or whatever it had been, on purpose. It was possible, Robert knew. He could remember the nights he spent late at night, running that damn razorblade over his skin, juts to watch himself bleed, to watch the long thin line of red course down his skin. It helped, making himself hurt like that- reminded him that he was still alive. He knew all to well how the world could treat someone who didn't fit in.

As pretty as she was, or maybe because of how pretty she was, Robert, in a flash of understanding, realized that she'd done it on purpose. She'd wanted to escape, and what better way to do it than to use a curse that was going to come true anyway? How utterly convenient. It was homicidal suicide.

If she'd wanted so badly to leave the world a hundred years ago, Robert despaired of having to wake her now. The world was crap, or at least- it had always seemed to him that way. And he knew. He knew, that if he woke her, she'd be taken advantage of, be exploited, persecuted…

He hadn't asked for this. All he'd wanted to do was try and kiss the stupid wench. Make a name for himself. That's all. He could still go through with it.

Before he could change his mind, Robert pulled the steel dagger from its sheath, and, without hesitating any longer raised it above the bed and brought it crashing down into the girl's chest.

Blood coursed from the hole in her chest, and for a moment, the girl's eyes flickered open, colliding with Robert's gaze. He couldn't have pulled away if his life depended on it. The princesses' bright blue eyes bore into his face, a mixture of anger, disgust, and something else Robert could not name.

Then she was dead. Robert watched as her eyes closed for the last time, long pale eyelashes brushing the skin of her cheek, gown no longer white, but rusty red, her fingers woven together piteously below her breast, where Robert's dagger still protruded. All he could do was stare at the unmoving figure, and stare he did.

In a moment's comprehension of what he'd just done, Robert realized that he couldn't go home. Ever. The hundred years of the girl's cursed sleep had bee carefully noted, and chronicled, with each new generation of Robert's family. It was from the girl's first and only suitor that Robert was descended, and all his family was counting on him to uphold the family tradition of trying to wake her. His mother and father both knew that if the girl would ever have a chance to wake, it would be Robert's destiny to do it, although others in his family had tried.

What had he done? What… Robert shut his eyes against the sight of the pious looking dead girl, pressing his cold fingertips against his lids, trying to block out the sight of her from his memory. Perhaps it was the touch of his icy fingers against the thin skin of his eyelids, or the picture of the dead girl that he knew instinctively would never leave him until the day he died that made him decide. Or possibly, it was the knowledge that if he returned home without the famed sleeping girl, his parents would never forgive him, so that home would cease to be home. Whatever it was, Robert came to a decision that saddened him for only a moment. It was pointless to cry when there was no one to hear, and he recognized that no one would cry for either of them, the girl or himself. Anyone who would have cried for her was long dead, and…

Gently, Robert pulled his blade from her chest, and, within a moment's indecision, knew what he would do with it. As he fell to the wooden floor beside the great bed, the blade dropped from his blood soaked fingertips, staining the floor- a silent testimony to the fallen Princess and the boy, trying to be a prince, who could not save her.

* * *

**Read and Review, or I will send my legions of undead** **Sharpie markers after you. Mwahahaha.**


End file.
